New Asus Zenbook UX31A, UX32A, and UX32VD Available Through Amazon US and DE

The much anticipated UX31A and UX32VD Ultrabooks from Asus are finally available from Amazon US and . The UX31A, which starts at a very reasonable price, is being marketed by Asus as the ‘Zenbook Prime’ which we’ve been hearing about over the last few months. According to Asus, a Zenbook achieves the ‘Prime’ denotation as long as it has the 1080p IPS display, SSD, and a backlit keyboard. The UX32VD is thus being marketed simply as a Zenbook because it lacks the SSD.

Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A

We’ve got to say that Asus appears to be leading the Ultrabook pack from a value perspective. The Zenbook Prime leverages Asus’ original Zenbook design while equipping premium features and Intel’s new Ivy Bridge platform, all for a surprisingly attractive price.

Starting at $1129 you can get your hands on a the UX31A-DB51 with the following:

The biggest complaints about the original Sandy Bridge-based Zenbook UX31E were the keyboard and screen. Both of which have been reworked in this new model. The IPS display is leading the laptop market in contrast ratio, and AnandTech says that the (now backlit) keyboard “is worlds better to type on”.

If you’ve got a bigger budget, Amazon is offering a $1599 option which is currently listed as shipping in 3-6 weeks. This is the UX31A-DB72 [DE: UX31A-R4003V] and includes all of the above except it bumps the processor to the Core i7-3517U and the SSD up to 256GB. There’s also a middle ‘Amazon Exclusive‘ option which gives you the 256GB SSD with Core i5 for $1349 (it’s currently out of stock).

The Zenbook Prime UX31A has shaped up to be a very attractive device thanks to solid pricing. Our only reservation is the port set which uses micro HDMI and mini VGA where we’d prefer to see full-sized ports, and although both USB ports have been updated to USB 3.0 over the original, we still think that a third USB port would be very useful.

Not all of them have it though, and most report that it’s less visible after some usage.

Ben Lang

MP, where are these photos from?

MP

A Swedish tech site/forum called sweclockers.se

They have a few threads about the UX31/32:s and this was something that that was observed by several new owners.

Nick

Bought the 31A 2 weeks ago, got it about a week ago and love it. Wish it had more ssd though

Horst

Is the RAM, SDD/HDD replaceable?

artaman

Roberts :
ux32vd, apparently no plans to release it.
Maybe to do with the fact they have priced ux31a at disgraceful £1850.
Nice one Asus…

£1850!!!…this -especially given my eligibility for the academic discount- makes apple macbook air a far cheaper alternative (you would ever even imagine the above statement would hold the slightest element of truth…)

MP

I don’t even know what to say, but a “lol” seems in place. If it indeed is £1850 it’s plain ridiculous.

Roberts :
ux32vd, apparently no plans to release it.
Maybe to do with the fact they have priced ux31a at disgraceful £1850.
Nice one Asus…

£1850!!!…this -especially given my eligibility for the academic discount- makes apple macbook air a far cheaper alternative (you would ever even imagine the above statement would hold the slightest element of truth…)

I’m really, REALLY interested in the UX32a Ivybridge release but it doesn’t look like they’re going to release an i3 Ivybridge version of the 32a….

I’d really like to test out a UX32a with some sort of Ivybridge set to 13watt TDP to see what the battery life looks like. I’ve now got the ability to get some hands-on time with most ultrabooks and I’m going to see if i can just start running MobileMark on them to get some battery life comparisons with an without the 13 watt TDP setting enabled on a few Ivy Bridge models as they come in. -This is what I’ve been dying to see but as far as I know no one has tested this yet.